The woman spins round and round, two hoops undulating around her. It’s haunting, mesmeric, hypnotic and I start to understand how a snake must feel when it’s being charmed. Hooping has certainly come a long way since children spun light plastic hoops in the playground. This is way more than a fitness phenomenon. A little bit hippy-dippy, a little bit circus-punk, it’s achingly cool and will doubtless be whirling its way round the festival circuit this summer. Classes are springing (or should that be swirling) up all over the country and everyone from sussed teenagers to give-it-a-go grannies are taking to the hoop. Diana Defries is the founder of Hoopswhirled which runs classes in and around London. ‘Hooping appears to be evolving fast but it’s been going in its present form for over ten years,’ she says. ‘I guess that qualifies it as an ‘overnight success’!’ The current movement began in clubs and festivals in the US but quickly went mainstream. ‘Hooping makes you feel more positive and calmer with a great sense of being …

I’m always sceptical of treatments that offer the world. However, the iS Clinical Fire & Ice facial comes with high-profile faces to back up its claims. It’s the secret weapon in the beauty arsenal of some of Hollywood’s top names, including Halle Berry, Gwyneth Paltrow and Evangeline Lily. It’s known in LA as the “Red Carpet Treatment” for its instant brightening, tightening and smoothing effects. Not a ‘feelgood’ salon facial, this is an intensive clinical treatment designed to resurface the skin, reduce fine lines and wrinkles, smooth and soften, while encouraging cellular renewal. Sounds like the cat’s whiskers, doesn’t it? But can it really be that good? Cathy Wallwork of the Medical Aesthetic Clinic in Winchester is a RGN and an erstwhile theatre nurse with a down-to-earth attitude. ‘We don’t create miracles,’ she says. ‘And things don’t happen overnight.’ She is, nonetheless, pretty excited about the treatment. ‘I’m really impressed with it. It’s very quick – a lunchtime procedure – and the results are excellent.’ Forget major pampering – this is a results-focused treatment with …

After many years I have finally pulled my journalism, my books and my blogging into one central site. I have migrated all my content from here to my new site: http://exmoorjane.com I do hope you’ll visit me there… pop by and say hello?

At the end of autumn, as the season dies, signs of decay are all around. Walking down Wimbledon Broadway, the leaves are soggy on the ground. Shoppers sport red poppies in remembrance of the war dead and, to compound the gloom, a hearse passes in funereal pomp. Life is short, it all seems to say, and then you die. Since time immemorial humans have railed against the grim reaper, desperately hunting for the elusive secret of immortality. The ancient Chinese sought P’eng-lai, the fabled Isles of Immortality, alchemists tried to formulate the elixir of life and magicians proffered their souls in return for life unending. It hasn’t stopped even now. We are still trying everything we can to dodge the graveyard shift: from the Nemectron (an orb believed to regenerate brain cells via dangling rings suspended on the ears) to the oxygen diet (beloved of Michael Jackson) or placental implants. Fads come and go but undertakers are still making a good living out of dying. But some people do live longer, if not perhaps...